That's why road diets and reducing road capacity is also important. Like Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Madrid or Vienna, the space dedicated to cars also have to be reduced in order to incite people to use something else than a car.
- Posts
- 8
- Comments
- 730
- Joined
- 3 yr. ago
- Posts
- 8
- Comments
- 730
- Joined
- 3 yr. ago
Cynical take from today's fucked up point of view: The teacher was woke and entirely wrong. The proof is that climate change is still not happening today. Caring for the environment is economic terrorism. There never was anything to worry about in the first place. Drill baby drill.
However I'm pretty sure that a standard transit system not made up of single cars that can only transport one or two person at a time and spy on them is also much safer.
Not that odd. Death by car is easily accepted by society. They are "accidents" and a "necessary evil" for society to function.
There's around a million people dying from cars every year and we just shrug and normalize them. Human or not, we just have to have cars and "accidents" are just that.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), road traffic injuries caused an estimated 1.35 million deaths worldwide in 2016. That is, one person is killed every 26 seconds on average.
Nobody cares about cars killing people and animals. So she's probably right.
Unless you buy a plot of land in a forested area, it's not yours, so you can be evicted at any time.
Or you will need to see a dentist or doctor at some point.
I had that kind of thought multiple times and it's so tempting until you think about the details.
I make a difference between the workers and the industry.
Therapists where I live can work in the public system, or in the private system.
It's free to see a therapist in the public system and they are paid by the government, but it's nearly impossible to have a session because they are booked months and months in advance. So they are not making more from this.
Then there's the ones working privately, usually also booked months in advance but for a few hundred dollars an hour. They are also not making more from this because they were already working full time.
However there is a "mental health industry", like Betterhelp, that will gladly exploit and profit from the circumstances.
"And because I consider mental health important, today I'm proud to present my sponsor, Betterhelp!"
Sweet capitalism.
There's always more than one but the others are busy chasing clients to put them into debt without their knowledge.
That's how I got one of their outrageously high interest MasterCard. They approach clients in the aisle, ask if they would like to save on their purchases, then ask a few personal questions, and and tell you that you're approved!
The moment you realize they are making a credit card request on your behalf, it's already too late. They told me I could just cancel the card afterwards.
I really despise how they are trying very hard to put their clients into debt.
Only it was probably not "pspspsp" because as a French speaker, I've never understood that English onomatopoeia. It doesn't make that sound in French. When I try to get the attention of a cat or another animal, it's usually more of a "dzkdzkdzk" or "tzktzk" sound. A bit like the sound of a kiss but made with tapping the tongue on the roof of the mouth instead of with the lips.
I don't drive but I live on a four lane road in front of trafic light and beyond particles, for me it's a combination of multiple things, all from cars.
There's the pollution from the combustion particles, but the noise is also a significant source of stress. From the young dudes that want to impress and rev their engines, to the huge trucks with trailers, they are all noisy and it makes it impossible to keep the windows open. Even the electric cars are noisy. Some of them sound like they are constantly honking at low volume. Plus, their tires are also making that white noise when they move at a certain speed, and they also shed microplastics.
And then because we don't have emergency lanes, there are several emergency vehicles passing in front of my apartment multiple times a day, sirens blasting and honking at cars stuck in trafic.
Also, the visual aspect of a car sewer makes me depressed. Seeing them everywhere. A sea of cars in cities, but also deep in nature.
Last year I visited a few Carribean islands and all of them were choked by cars. Want to take a hike? Just get a car, there's a parking on the top of the volcano.
The article ends on the note that electric cars will at least help with the pollution from combustion particles, which is good. But the noise and the sea of cars will remain, they'll just be electric.
And face coverings are now illegal in public.
- JumpDeleted
Permanently Deleted
This reminds me of the song Dearly Beloved by Bad Religion.
Dearly beloved, dearly beloved, dearly beloved
(Make no mistake, despite our traits I've seldom seen)
I can't relate to you (I can't relate to you), I can't relate to you
...
Do you know my name - sing a light refrain
For a man estranged - I won't deny that I'm inclined to isolate
Dearly beloved...
I don't have a car nor a house and I'm in my 40ies. I've been told multiple times that I'm not a responsible adult as long as I don't have one of these.
It's just what I've used most outside of Canada. But yeah, not just DB. We're missing a lot of the "train culture" present in Germany and other rich countries, and that is reflected in local and political will.
Like, as much as there is also a thriving car culture in Germany, and the reputation of DB (also somewhat justified), there's actually more than a handful of people that thinks having passenger trains in their towns and cities is a necessity. And there's even actions taken to reopen some lines that were previously closed! YouTube is sometimes suggesting me videos of train route reactivation in Germany, and it's incredible to see the will of the people to have a passenger train back in their villages, and the positive(!) comments.
Meanwhile in Canada any attempt at maintaining current rail service, let alone reviving passenger trains in smaller towns, or even cities, will be met with apathy by most people.
He should have been a landlord if he wanted to get into other people's homes without permission.
No consequences for that.
Huh? I'm not sure if you're serious but I can give it a try.
Short answer : The tracks to Lévis have been removed decades ago and it's now a bike path.
Cynical answer: There are still tracks close enough to the city that a connection and new station could be built. However Via Rail is required to be profitable so it wouldn't happen. It's North America, just use a car (electric)!
Car-less person answer: You kind of can. Take a train to Québec City and use the ferry to Lévis.
But to me the bigger rhetorical question is, why the hell doesn't the Québec region have any kind of commuter trains.
The REM solves the issue of dedicated tracks, but it's a light rail stuck to a core metropolitan region, because it's "for profit". It wouldn't reach the people complaining in the article, because they are too far, and not profitable.
Plus, the financing method for the REM, a public-private partnership, is cannibalizing public transit in the Montréal region. It has a non-compete clause with public transit, because profit.
The REM is not a model to follow.
I'm mostly familiar with trains in Germany and I know a comparison is unfair, but it seems like we're missing an entire part of a coherent transit system.
We have Via trains, that can loosely be compared to Inter-city trains. Long distance between cities and more expensive. We also have commuter trains like GO and Exo that serves a metro area and all the suburbs around. They are cheaper (subsidized), you can get a monthly pass, no seat reservation, and they are more frequent (than Via trains).
But we have nothing akin to regional rail. I'll just quote a definition from Wikipedia:
Regional rail usually provides rail services between towns and cities, rather than purely linking major population hubs in the way inter-city rail does. Regional rail operates outside major cities. Unlike Inter-city, it stops at most or all stations between cities. It provides a service between smaller communities along the line that are often byproducts of ribbon developments, and also connects with long-distance services at interchange stations located at junctions, terminals, or larger towns along the line. Alternative names are "local train" or "stopping train".
I understand the people complaining in the article, but as someone without a car, I also rolled up my eyes and thought 'but what did they expect from Via?' Exo and GO trains are specifically for commuting but they don't reach them. Relying on last minutes tickets from Via for commuting is, IMHO, a bit insane. They are missing a regional train. Right now our society expects them to drive their car (electric!) to Oshawa then use GO, if they want to commute by train.
We are missing regional trains in Québec too. It's equally stupid that someone can go from Montréal to the end of an Exo train line for $10 while the next city with Via would cost triple that, and with less departures. There's also two rail lines between Montréal and Sherbrooke. Both are used for freight, but no passenger trains. I'm still salty about this one because the little town where I grew up, on one of those lines, had passenger trains for more than a century before being cut by Paul Martin in the 90ies.
Beyond the recurring issues that you mentioned with the priorities and the lack of tracks, neither our provinces nor the federal government have any cohesive plan for transit. It's either by city and metro region, or Inter-city with Via or coach. Nothing in between. Even if we give priority to passenger trains, we're stuck with a ginormous car culture that says trains and buses are a waste of taxpayers money. I would really love to see more investment than just in Alto, even if it's still a good thing, but I'm afraid Via is going to stagnate for a while longer.
I understand why Germans whine about their trains but I'm so damn jealous. If we could only have half of their system. At least some regional trains!
You don't say. It's almost as if I was deliberately obtuse.